The 21st Century: Some Challenges for the Cuban Revolution

By Luis Suarez Salazar

[The following article is reprinted from the Cuban magazine
Tricontinental, issue no. 141 (1999). The author is an associate professor in
the philosophy and history faculty of Havana University, a member of the
Tricontinental advisory council and former head of the Centre for American
Studies.]

On January 1, 1999 the Cuban Revolution celebrated its 40th anniversary. The
eve of the 21st century seems an appropriate time to summarise some of the most
important challenges Cuba faces in developing its external plan for socialist
transition over the next few years. This article presents an outline of these
challenges, without attempting to be exhaustive and in no particular order,
although proceeding from the general to the more specific. These challenges are:

1. To confront the multiple and contradictory effects of the extension of
various phenomena to a global level, relying on its own strengths and the
prevailing moral force of international solidarity, including what remains of
socialist internationalism. Among these are ecological and socio-environmental
problems (such as the greenhouse effect, climatic changes, etc.), globalisation
and economic regionalisation, and ideological-cultural "worldisation".
They also include the conflict-ridden and certainly prolonged transition of the
nation-state into region- state or of the national state to a supranational
state or to the "global village". Add to this the construction of the
institutions and world order of the so-called "post post-Cold War".

All of this must be done while preserving to the greatest extent possible the
principle attributes of national sovereignty, while avoiding the
self-destruction of the Cuban social experiment or -- what would amount to the
same thing -- allowing the Cuban social project to be subsumed by the powerful
economic, political, and ideological forces of the world capitalist system.
Despite that system's shortcomings and its growing crises and contradictions,
the spread of the enormous and increasing powers that still preserve capitalism,
as well as the growing pressures of interdependence, pose an enormous challenge
to the construction of socialism in any underdeveloped country. This is even
more so when it is being attempted in a country (like Cuba) located a mere 90
miles from the world's only multidimensional power -- the one which declared
itself the winner in the Cold War: the United States of America.

2. To define and plan a new revolutionary utopia, socialist or -- if you
prefer -- communist, that can be a catalyst for and bring into play the energies
and best subjective factors (self-esteem, solidarity, heroism, patriotism,
internationalism) that reside in the consciousness and collective imagination of
important sectors of the Cuban people. But above all, it must capture the
hearts, minds, and imaginations of new generations. On these, on their ongoing
development, hang the possibilities of maintaining, developing, and protecting
the influence of the socialism being built in Cuba. This socio-economic
development will continue to be an essential condition for Cuba to be able to
maintain its political and ideological stance, to respond to and counter the
dominant world and hemispheric "order".

This new revolutionary utopia, as well as being based on a profound and
considered critique of contemporary, capitalism -- especially neo-liberal,
marginal, and semi-marginal capitalism -- will be obliged to distance itself
explicitly from the ideas (and practice) that led to the failure of "false
European socialism", as well as from the errors, inadequacies, and
inefficiency of the processes of socialist transition that still exist, even in
Cuba's own socialist transition. In addition to its domestic importance, this
distancing will help to mobilise on Cuba's side all the social, political, moral
and cultural forces that criticise both the capitalist status quo (in theory and
practice), and the deformations of "primitive socialism". This will
include those sectors of the political, social, and intellectual left that,
despite honest positions, and for different reasons, are. not friendly toward
certain aspects of the Asian socialist projects or the "survival
model" that has been institutionalised in Cuba. 3. To re-establish the
foundations of a [native] and viable socialist plan. This continues to be a
precondition for self- sustained, sustainable, and independent development of
the country. It implies, among other things, the maintenance of unity (without
sterile unanimity) of the Cuban popular masses and political vanguard;
sustaining and deepening the popular character of the state; perfecting the
norms of internal functioning and the work of the Cuban Communist Party and of
the Union of Young Communists.

It also implies completing the construction and consolidation of the popular,
democratic, representative and participatory institutions created by the
revolution, broadening the political and legal consciousness of the citizenry as
well as improving the legal code, legislative system, electoral system, and
administration of justice. All of this is linked directly or indirectly to the
promotion and increasing satisfaction of all human rights.

The aforesaid also involves maintaining and rethinking the social gains of
the revolution, recognising the growing heterogeneity of the Cuban masses and
creating new institutional and organisational forms to express this plurality
and to realise the rights of citizens to organise autonomously toward diverse
social ends without affecting indispensable national unity. It implies
perfecting the efforts and representation of the social, mass, and professional
organisations and making progress in the administrative decentralisation of the
country and in the movement of authority and resources to the municipalities and
regions. Finally it means increasing the quantity and quality of information
flowing from the citizens to their representatives and vice versa.

All of this will contribute to a constant broadening of participation by the
citizenry in the identification, evaluation, decision-making, and solution of
all the issues that concern and affect them, including the ever more complex
processes of the economy and foreign policy. Under the difficult conditions that
lie ahead, what Vladimir Ilich Lenin outlined is more and more true, in the
sense that it is the masses that determine the authority of the state. That
authority is stronger "when the masses know everything, can judge
everything, and do everything consciously".

4. To guarantee the economic self-sustainability of the Cuban social plan.
This is linked, among other things, to the need for decentralisation and
democratisation of economic planning and management and for progress in the
socialisation of the means of production and in services. It also implies the
rational and environmentally sustainable use of scarce energy resources --
fossil or alternative, domestic or imported -- that the country has at its
disposal. It is related to relocation and restructuring of foreign commerce, an
increase in exportable assets with greater added value, the. sale and export of
services, including high quality professional services, the construction of new
dynamic, competitive advantages deriving from. research and development and a
balanced increase in imports, especially of capital assets with high
technological component. It also involves finding a solution to the structural
deficit of the balance of payments and achieving the self- sustained resolution
of the country's swollen foreign debt in hard currency. It means increasing
domestic savings and investments and overcoming the parallel currencies and the
income differentiation this produces in Cuban society. Furthermore, it implies
restructuring and resisting the productive and service apparatus, searching for
new material and moral means for stimulating productivity, and, finally,
increasing the effectiveness, efficiency, internal integration, productivity,
and competitiveness of the Cuban economy.

5. To build a renewed and integrated security for Cuba within the exclusive
and "North-centric" world system that is taking shape. This is deeply
linked to everything already mentioned. However, in its external dimension this
objective will continue to be affected by either the isolation or the failure of
the strategy and tactics developed by US circles of power or by vengeful sectors
that function within the misnamed "Cuban community in the United
States". We refer here to the blockade and the plan made in the USA for the
"peaceful and democratic transition of Cuba", among others.

However, there also exists a need to create new stabilising factors in the
world system that today, as well as in the future (even in the hypothetical
situation of a "normalisation" of relations with the United States),
would allow Cuba to cope with the problems that it faces. These problems include
the asymmetry of power relative to the hegemonic force in the hemisphere (USA)
and the geo-economic, geopolitical, and cultural "forces of gravity"
that, based on the dozens of theories from the "ripe fruit" [that Cuba
would naturally fall, like a ripe fruit, into the waiting lap of the United
States - ed.] to "Manifest Destiny", have fed the US elite's
hopes of exercising their domination (or their hegemony) over Cuba. This is part
of their constant expansionist desires with respect to their neighbours to the
south and the preservation of their global power throughout the world.

This means a constant search by the Cuban authorities for better ways to
expand and develop their relations with other powers belonging to the Triad (or
the Pentarchy) of global power: the European Union, Japan, Russia, and the
emerging People's Republic of China. In addition to the current advantages, in
the future this will allow Cuba to gain potential benefits from the system of
shared hegemony and multipolarity (in economics but also in the
political-military sphere) that, according to some predictions, will
characterise the world order and system in the next century.

Despite these possibilities, however, one can't forget that some of these
powers, with their own objectives and methods, will also seek the gradual
erosion of the Cuban social plan or its subordination to and dependency on the
world capitalist system. This means that it is important for Cuba to continue to
develop links with socialist countries or countries with a socialist orientation
in Asia. Also important are Cuba's links with other intermediate powers in the
First World (such as Canada), the former Second World (such as the Ukraine), and
all the nations of the Third and Fourth Worlds, beginning, as we will see later,
with those in Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as with the African
countries of the South Atlantic. Because of Cuba's proximity to its Caribbean
neighbours this is the natural arena for political, economic, and cultural
projection.

In addition, Cuba must redouble its multilateral diplomatic efforts in order
to continue to play a role in reshaping the post-Cold War world and, above all,
to block attempts by the major imperialist powers to impose their regime of
limited sovereignty on the majority of the world's nations. Cuba must try to
block their efforts to change de facto or de jure the principles of sovereignty
and non-intervention in the internal affairs of other states and the prohibition
of coercion or force to settle international conflicts. These principles, along
with the equality of states, serve as the basis for contemporary international
law. Given her unfavourable geopolitical position; their day-to-day defence is
of tremendous strategic importance to Cuba.

6. Intimately linked to this, Cuba must also continue to seek -- as it has to
date -- the best practical means of advancing its complex bilateral and
multilateral political relations and its cultural, economic, and cooperative
relationships with the states and government of Latin America and the Caribbean.
Cuba must explore very cautiously the best exchanges with the multiple and
sometimes superimposed integrationist schemes of cooperation or free trade that
are at work in Latin America and, above all, in the Caribbean.

Despite its various areas of incompatibility with the political, legal, and
socioeconomic systems, with the preponderant national, international, or
integrationist institutions of Latin America and the Caribbean, Cuba will have
to resolve all the structural problems (lack of complementary economies, deficit
in the balance of trade, defaults on debts, etc.) that affect its economic-
financial relations (true integration) with the principal countries of the
region. Equally, it will be necessary to develop alternatives to meet the
challenges that will result from consolidation in the first years of the next
century of the Free Trade Zone of the Americas, agreed at the 1994 Summit in
Miami and ratified in Santiago de Chile in 1998. This came about, above all, as
a result of the growing de facto integration of the majority of the economies in
the northern part of the subcontinent with the US market.

In this context, the Cuban authorities will also have to keep updating their
positions on the central problems on the inter- American agenda, creatively and
patiently encouraging the formation of positions in answer to the neo-Monroeist
regionalisation and integration in the Western Hemisphere promoted by the United
States. Among these, all of the decisions and actions that block the clear trend
toward the formation of a basic consensus between the hegemonic sectors of the
ruling classes in both parts of the hemisphere. This consensus affects
ideological and political pluralism, the founding principles of inter-American
law (in particular, non-intervention in the internal affairs of other states)
and tends toward the consolidation of restrictive notions about hemispheric
security designed unilaterally by the United States. The institutionalisation of
these concepts (to those who are not strangers to the advances that, since 1994,
US diplomatic efforts have been achieving in various inter-American circles)
would create serious challenges for the Cuban transition to socialism.

7. To seek ways and means to maintain and develop relations of cooperation
and solidarity between Cuba and the popular and revolutionary movement in the
world including in socialist countries or countries with a socialist orientation
in Asia and Africa, and especially in Latin America and the Caribbean. This
requires the promotion of a renewed internationalism that includes, but also
transcends, proletarian internationalism, and reaches out to new and
heterogeneous actors on the social stage who participate in what is known as
"international civil society". In particular, this means reaching out
to those who, whatever their view of socialism, promote actions against the
dominant order.

This also implies the constant solution of the contradictions that emerge
between the needs of national foreign policy and the plan and practice of
solidarity, anti-imperialism, anti- colonialism, and anti-capitalism that has
historically characterised the external plan of the Cuban revolutionaries. This
is true because, as Che said, internationalism is not only a duty, but it is
also an endogenous necessity for the construction of socialism. The
consolidation of these values can contribute to the defeat of the return of
individualism, pragmatism, and commercialism that, in today's circumstances,
have taken root in the consciousness of some sectors of the Cuban masses. This
will also make it possible for selfishness and competition between human beings
and nations to be constantly replaced by the anti- hegemonic relations of
fraternity, cooperation, and solidarity so needed by the world, the continent,
and the Cuban people.

8. To achieve improved and more detailed public information about the
processes and policies that the Cuban party and state develop, recognising the
new language and codes -- which are not always so virtuous -- through which the
messages that are sent outside the country are deciphered. This means the
development of various alternative means to communicate the positions and
actions of the revolution and a meticulous and careful handling of
representatives of the international press. It also means the resolution of the
contradictions that sometimes develop between the needs (or the virtues) of
internal political, ideological, or cultural discourse and its transmission to a
plurality of external receptors that function within different realities,
cultures, and political situations. The latter is all the more necessary due to
the growing influence of public opinion on all of the processes of international
society as a result of the advances of the scientific and technological
revolution in transportation and telecommun- ications.

At this juncture, the virtuous interaction of Cuba, its institutions, and its
citizens with so-called "electronic superhighways" and with
"cyberspace" create challenges intimately linked to the growing spread
of information within Cuban society. These include the creation of norms that
guarantee the ethical and socially useful employment of these media, and the
formalisation and enjoyment of the citizen's right to receive and transmit
information about the realities that surround him. Despite the dangers, real, or
virtual, these "interactive horizontal communications" can also
contribute to the external plan of the Cuban Revolution.

9. To continue to advance in all of the endogenous and exogenous processes
linked to normalisation of relations between the Cuban communities overseas and
their country of origin. This means perfecting the redefinition and
formalisation of the constitutional concepts of nationality and citizenship as
well as Cuba's regulations on emigration and immigration. This is equally
necessary because the authorities, without damaging the indispensable domestic
political consensus, should maintain and look for new content in the dialogue
concerning the nation and emigration, as well as maintaining the contacts that
they have developed with the so-called "moderate exile sectors". This
could contribute to strengthening the power of the "silent majority"
among the Cuban immigrants in the United States.

Nevertheless, the aforesaid doesn't negate the fact that, objectively, some
of the participants in this dialogue have a more or less explicit political
agenda that does not coincide with the interests and aspirations of the majority
of the Cuban people. Nor does it negate the fact that some of the international
actors that are important to Cuba -- in particular, certain European and Latin
American governments-have granted audiences to exile organisations and have
urged the Cuban government to establish similar contacts. This is part of the
search for what they inadequately call "a political and negotiated solution
to the Cuban conflict" or for "national and family
reunification". The latter was one of the messages that the Catholic Church
most fervently delivered before, during, and after the historic visit to Cuba by
His Holiness John Paul II.

One of the dilemmas that Cuba's external plan will have to continue to
resolve is how to keep these facts in mind without damaging the positive
relations that exist with those governments or those political or ideological
forces that respect the political order of the country and are resistant to the
most aggressive aspects of US strategy.

10. The final point, although no less important, is the challenge to promote
the development of Cuban social and political thought. This should come about as
much through recapturing its best roots as through interaction with advances in
social studies -- including the new and multiple interpretations of Marxism --
that can lead to more profound diagnosis and planning about the world and the
continent as well as the reality of Cuba itself. This demands preparation of the
means and creation of the climate and avenues necessary for the development and
diffusion of explicit ideas and arguments about the different responses that
exist both inside and outside Cuba to the complex problems that humanity, the
continent, and the island will have to face in the next century.

The so-called "world of knowledge" does not just encompass the
development of the natural and technical sciences. It also includes new
empirical knowledge, new theories, and new methodologies linked to the
development of all of the social and human sciences. Today more than ever, we
see the validity of the words of Cuba's late foreign minister Raul Roa Garcia
(known here as "the Minister of Dignity") when he said:

"In no field are the criteria, perspectives, and proposed solutions so
numerous and so varied as in the field of social sciences. The scientific spirit
and intolerance are incompatible. The scientific spirit is nourished by and
takes root in freedom of investigation and criticism. Intolerance, the outward
extension of the exclusive domination exercised within us by dogmatic faith,
intoxicates intelligence, twists sensibility, and frustrates scientific
activity, which is the liberating impulse, toward the conquest and possession of
the truth. In the insatiable desire to capture the truth and dissect it that
impassions the life of the mind, even errors have value. To paraphrase
Shakespeare: there is no mistake so great that it doesn't contain a grain of
truth."

Listing some of the principle challenges and threats that the foreseeable
future holds for Cuba does not discount the tremendous endogenous strengths of
all kinds that have accumulated during 40 years of revolution. These -- in
particular the sustained national consensus that has been forged on the
socialist plan and the profound changes that have been produced in the political
culture and capabilities of the Cuban people -- are what make possible the
"miracle" -- as Comandante Fidel Castro called it -- of having
guaranteed the survival and the development of the revolution in 1990s. The
success with which Cuba will be able to confront the challenges of the future
depends greatly on the preservation and enrichment of these strengths, and on
overcoming the erosion of ethics and values that has developed in some sectors
of Cuban society.

Nor does the enumeration of these challenges ignore the multiple factors that
weigh in Cuba's favour in the world system, in the inter-American subsystem and
in world public opinion, as well as in heterogeneous "international civil
society". In fact, despite some internal misunderstandings, Cuba's
interactions with the many non-governmental or non-state institutions (such as
NGOs and new social movements) have made it possible to advance the development
of multifaceted solidarity with Cuba and the formation of new transnational
identities. These are heirs of the transnational identities that formed with the
stimulus of the now-vanished Communist working class and national liberation
movement. These new identities (women, business, academic, labour union,
generational, etc.), could doubtless be made more use of in the achievement of
the domestic and foreign objectives of the socialist transition and, in
particular, in defence of the sovereignty and self-determination of the Cuban
people.

To this is added the growing resistance to US hegemony that can be seen in
the international and inter-American community and the increasing defence of the
principles of sovereignty and self- determination that can be seen in some
international organisations. An additional factor is the ever more generalised
criticism of the negative social, economic, ecological, and political
consequences of the neo-liberal structural adjustment programs instituted in
recent years. Also important are the justifiable concerns of underdeveloped
nations about the growing breaches, asymmetry, and dependency in relation to the
First World and other transnational powers, stemming from the contradictory
tendencies of "globalisation" and, in particular, the constant crises
suffered since 1994 by the ever more interconnected and speculative
international financial system.

For the many state, sub-state, and supra-state forces that resist and seek
national, regional, sub-regional, and international options in the face of the
disastrous effects of these processes, the actions and positions of the Cuban
leadership, popular masses, and socio-political plan despite their errors,
inadequacies, and difficulties continue to be a "model of resistance"
faced with the unjust dominant world, hemispheric, and societal
"orders". Some of these forces also view the Cuban socialist
transition as a "social laboratory". Cuban successes and failures can
teach useful lessons for the development of alternative plans and programs to
deal with underdevelopment and dependent capitalism.

In addition, it is necessary to clarify that the challenges, threats,
strengths, and opportunities that the foreseeable future holds for the external
plan of the Cuban revolution do not exclude an analysis of the various scenarios
that might develop under the world capitalist system or under its subsystem in
the hemisphere. Both are threatened by profound crisis and contradictions. The
way in which these resolve themselves can increase or diminish -- depending on
the situation -- the challenges and dangers or, the opportunities and strengths
for Cuba.

Furthermore, none of these variables are predetermined by "fate".
The actions taken by the Cuban political leadership and the popular masses, as
well as by the organisations that function within Cuban "socialist civil
society", can enhance the strengths and opportunities and neutralise the
challenges. They can also do the reverse: transform an opportunity, inadequately
attended to, into a difficult challenge or a threat. The general director of
UNESCO, Federico Mayor Zaragoza, has called this phenomenon the ethics of time:
"We already have the diagnosis and, in many cases, the cure. To postpone
taking corrective measures, as difficult as they may be, can lead to a point of
no return. The potential irreversibility is an ethical imperative. If we do not
act today, tomorrow may be too late."

This underlines that for the Cuban socialist plan to face the present and
work out its future, in addition to analysing critically and self-critically its
present and its past, it must also summon all the internal and external forces
interested in preserving self-determination and independence for the Cuban
people. Although the organisation and mobilisation of all the best forces of the
country and the world is an essentially political task, it is also linked, in
the present historical circumstances, to the need for up-dating, producing, and
reproducing the ideology of the present phase of the Cuban Revolution.

This is true not only because historical experience demonstrates that no
socio-economic system can function without ideological stimulus that helps
guarantee its legitimacy and the cohesion and mobilisation of the social body,
as well as projecting an image of the future (a utopia) of the movement of
society, of the origin, current position, and future destination of every one of
its institutions, social sectors, and individual citizens, but also because for
Cuba and its external plan the production and reproduction of this revolutionary
ideology continues, and will continue to be an unavoidable condition for
fruitful and dynamic interaction with the complex world of the 21st century.